Rise of Empires: Spain

After an unusual Christmas, the time came to January 1, 1876.

Juan Fernando, Carlo's eldest son, was nearly seven months old on Christmas and could crawl around in Carlo's big bed.

Carlo also doted on this little guy. He played with little Juan Fernando all day on Christmas, fully fulfilling his duties as a father.

It is worth mentioning that the little guy also loves his father Carlo. When Carlo came to the bed, the little guy immediately climbed to his father's side with his hands and feet, which made Queen Sophie, who had been taking care of the little guy for a long time, a little jealous.

With the addition of a little guy, the Christmas atmosphere in the palace has become much more lively. Although the Christmas activities prepared by the palace in previous years were also grand, the royal family only had Carlo and Queen Sophie, after all, and it looked too lonely and deserted.

In the future, every Christmas of the royal family, the number of members of the Spanish royal family will definitely increase. At present, Queen Sophie's body has been almost recovered, and Carlo also intends to continue to have a second child with Queen Sophie in the new year.

Anyway, the Spanish royal family has no financial problems, so the more princes and princesses they have, the better. Only when there are more and more royal family members can the royal family expand and avoid the risk of extinction.

The good news is that Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young, and there is plenty of time to give birth in the next ten years.

If he is lucky, Carlo's number of children may be enough to make up a football team. The royal family's more children are also a role model, which can encourage the public to have more children and promote the growth of the Spanish population.

As time came to January 1876, the election of members of the House of Representatives in various regions of Spain gradually came to an end.

The first to end the election were the Madrid region and several regions with small populations. Regions with small populations will naturally not get too many seats in the House of Representatives, and the election of individual seats will naturally be very fast.

Carlo also got the election reports of these regions that have completed the election as soon as possible. At present, there are a total of 4 regions that have completed the election, namely the Madrid region, the Balearic region, the La Rioja region and the Cantabria region.

Among the less than 30 seats in the lower house held by these four regions, the Progressive Party still occupies the majority, but the number can no longer form a crushing advantage over the Conservative Party.

The proportion of Progressive Party members is only about 40%, the proportion of Conservative Party members has increased to 30%, and there are only a handful of Liberal Party members, accounting for less than 10% of all members in these four regions.

Although this is only the result of the election of members of the four regions, it can also reflect the current support of various parties in Spain to a certain extent.

Because of the afterglow of Prime Minister Primo, the Progressive Party is still the largest party in Spain for the time being. But after the Liberal Party lost the protection of Prime Minister Primo, it is no longer one of the three major parties in Spain on par with the Conservative Party, and there is already a certain gap between the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party.

Although Carlo is still optimistic that Mateo can lead the Liberal Party to gradually grow, combined with the current situation of Spanish political parties, if he wants to lead the Liberal Party to become a powerful party on par with the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party, this road is destined to be difficult.

More than half a month passed, and finally at the end of January, all the 298 seats in the House of Representatives in various regions of Spain were elected, and the new House of Representatives officially convened on February 3, 1876.

The distribution of the 298 seats in the House of Representatives was not much different from what Carlo had estimated at the time. The Progressive Party is still the largest party in Spain, occupying 37.6% of the House of Representatives, with a total of 112 seats.

The Conservative Party has become the second largest party in Spain, and has greatly narrowed the gap with the Progressive Party. The Conservative Party's proportion is also as high as 33.2%, almost becoming the second party in Spain with more than 100 seats in the House of Representatives.

The Liberal Party was a big hit, occupying only 34 seats in total, accounting for 11.4% of the total seats in the House of Representatives.

In addition, about 17.8% of the members in the House of Representatives are non-partisans, who occupy a total of 53 seats, more than the third largest party, the Liberal Party.

After the House of Commons was reorganized, Carlo personally attended the first meeting of the House of Commons. Not to mention, a large meeting of nearly 300 people is indeed more lively than a meeting of 200 people. The venue has also been temporarily expanded to ensure that it can accommodate nearly 300 members of the House of Commons.

After the establishment of the House of Commons, the next most important thing is to elect the Speaker of the House of Commons.

The position of Speaker is still relatively important. Externally, it is a symbol of the House of Commons, and internally, it has the power to preside over House meetings, adjudicate House proposals, and announce election results.

Because the Speaker of the House of Commons is also a member of the House of Commons, the Speaker also has all the powers that members of the House of Commons have.

The weekly routine meetings and emergency meetings held by the House of Commons are all presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons. Therefore, the first thing after the establishment of the House of Commons is that all members vote to elect a new Speaker of the House of Commons.

From the distribution ratio of seats in the House of Commons, it can be seen that the candidate for the Speaker of the House of Commons will basically be born from the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party.

However, because the proportion of seats in the House of Commons occupied by these two parties does not exceed 50%, they also need to win over members of other parties or those non-partisan members to ensure that their members become the Speaker of the House of Commons to a greater extent.

In terms of the system of the upper and lower houses, Spain and the United Kingdom currently have certain similarities.

Although most cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister, this does not mean unconditional appointment. Even with the support of the prime minister, if you want to become a cabinet minister in Spain, you must first become a member of either of the upper and lower houses.

Only after becoming a member of parliament can you get the right to be nominated as a cabinet minister. Such a system can ensure that the parliamentary election can serve as a tool for the first round of screening before becoming a cabinet minister.

Except for very few examples, most guys who can become members of the upper and lower houses basically have certain abilities.

After several days of election competition, the House of Commons finally elected a new speaker, Horn Fernandez, a member of the Progressive Party.

In fact, the competition between the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party for the speaker is relatively deadlocked. However, Carlo considered that the Conservative Party monopolized the two major positions of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, so he fixed the candidate for the Speaker of the House of Commons on the Progressive Party.

Compared with the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party, which has been trained by Prime Minister Primo, is currently the most suitable ruling party in Spain. If it were not for the fact that the second-in-command Ruiz was too radical, Carlo would not necessarily have decided to take over Prime Minister Primo as Canovas.

1876 was destined to be a busy year for Carlo.

During the day, he had to attend meetings of various governments and important institutions, and at night he had to work hard with Queen Sophie.

If Carlo had not attached great importance to physical exercise since he came to Spain, he would definitely not be able to bear such fatigue during the day and at night.

In his spare time, Carlo also had to have fun with the two maids, Anna and Alice, and used his time to the extreme.

Under continuous hard work, Queen Sophie soon brought good news.

Because of the experience brought by Juan Fernando, when the pregnancy reaction appeared again, Queen Sophie quickly realized that she might be pregnant.

Although it is already the second child, Carlo and Queen Sophie still attach great importance to the little guy in their belly.

Since the pregnancy was confirmed, the royal private doctor who accompanied her at all times, and a large number of maids and servants who were always ready to serve her were countless.

There are only more than 100 servants in the entire Spanish royal palace, and there are more than 20 servants serving Queen Sophie.

Speaking of these servants in the palace, we have to mention the palace's very strict servant selection and training process.

At present, all of the more than 100 servants have undergone background checks, and the infiltration of Republican rebels has been ruled out from the beginning.

In addition, Carlo also found orphans from all over Spain for training, and trained some of the orphans who were loyal enough but not capable enough as servants and maids.

In addition to the relatively strict selection and training system, Carlo is also very generous with the salary and benefits of all servants in the palace.

The minimum income of the palace servants exceeds the average annual income of the Spanish people, and the average income is far higher than the average annual income of the Spanish people.

Especially for servants who hold some more important positions, their income will be greatly increased to ensure their loyalty.

Although Carlo trusts these servants enough, the Royal Security Intelligence Agency also monitors these servants.

After all, it is related to the safety of himself and his family, so it is not too much to pay attention to it.

One morning in February, Education Minister Gerard Wilson asked to see Carlo and brought a good news that made Carlo very happy, that is, the latest results of literacy education in Spain.

"Your Majesty, the education department has counted the latest results of literacy education, and the data is in full line with our expectations." Gerard Wilson smiled and the first thing he did when he saw Carlo was to report the good news to Carlo.

Carlo nodded, took the literacy education data handed over by Gerard Wilson, and read it by himself.

The data showed that Spain's literacy education results in the last year, that is, 1875, were still quite good.

In 1874, the population participating in literacy education in Spain increased to an astonishing one million. Although a big reason for this is that these people want to take advantage of the free lunch provided by Carlo, it is undeniable that those who participated in literacy education effectively reduced the proportion of illiterate people in Spain.

At the beginning of 1875, the illiterate population in Spain had dropped below 39%, which was a great improvement compared to the 70% or so since Carlo was crowned.

A year later, the illiterate population in Spain fell sharply again, and now the total illiterate population is less than 35%.

According to government data, as of the beginning of 1876, the population of Spain was about 18.25 million. (Estimate)

Among them, the illiterate population has dropped to less than 6.4 million, and a large part of them are young children who cannot receive education and middle-aged and elderly people who are too old.

In addition to these people, the remaining illiterate population are mostly family breadwinners who need to work continuously to earn income.

They really don't have much free time to participate in literacy education, and the factory will not give them holidays, which is also the biggest problem facing literacy education.

Fortunately, the revision of the labor law can ensure that the vast majority of workers and other employees in Spain have more rest time. Although the improvement is not much, according to the government's estimate, workers can have an average of half an hour to an hour more rest time per day than before.

If the illiteracy rate of 70% a few years ago was too exaggerated, then the current illiteracy rate of less than 35% is not bad in the whole of Europe.

Although powerful countries such as Britain, France and Germany have lower illiteracy rates, they are already extremely developed powers after all.

There are still large areas in Europe with a large number of illiterate and low-income people, and the existence of these people has also reduced the per capita education and income level in Europe.

Looking at the whole of Europe, Spain's per capita education and illiteracy rate are not bad, at least they can get a medium level.

Especially compared with Russia, which is also a powerful country, Spain is not bad in education. Most of the population in Russia is illiterate, and it is extremely difficult to popularize education.

Although Russia has undergone reforms, the reforms have not been completed thoroughly. Peasants are still at the bottom of the social ladder in Russia. Not to mention the right to education, they do not even value the most basic human rights.

Of course, a large population is also one of the reasons why Russia is strong. The name of the European bulldozer is famous all over the world, and it has also made Russia one of the five traditional European powers comparable to Britain, France, Germany and Austria.

Later, powers like the United States and Italy still have a large gap with Russia. It is precisely because of this that even if Russia does very poorly in terms of per capita income and education, it is still a powerful country, and it is a powerful country without any controversy.

"The Ministry of Education has done a good job. You have lived up to Prime Minister Primo's expectations." Carlo looked at the Minister of Education Gerard Wilson with satisfaction, and he was quite impressed with this capable Minister of Education.

More than a year ago, Gerard Wilson proposed a dual-track education model, advocating a two-pronged approach of general education and technical education, while cultivating the high-educated and high-tech talents that Spain lacks.

At present, dual-track education has been implemented in Spain, and it is expected to produce results in a short time. In particular, the technical schools established by the Spanish government have currently recruited a large number of technical trainees.

After completing technical training, these trainees will transform themselves into high-level technical talents that Spain urgently needs.

Gerard Wilson, the Minister of Education who proposed this system, has long been recognized and supported by Carlo and successfully re-elected as Minister of Education.

Hearing what Carlo said, Gerard Wilson breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he gained Carlo's trust with his own abilities, he is, after all, the Minister of Education appointed by Prime Minister Primo and a member of the Progressive Party.

If Carlo is dissatisfied with the way Prime Minister Primo once monopolized power and intends to completely cut off the current Spanish government from Prime Minister Primo, then he is still very likely to bid farewell to the Spanish cabinet government and end his political career.

At present, Carlo has no intention of completely cutting off Prime Minister Primo. As the minister of the same party as Prime Minister Primo, Gerard Wilson can still stay in the position of Minister of Education and play his own brilliance.

"All this is due to your Majesty." Gerard Wilson flattered him and secretly expressed his attitude: "If your Majesty had not supported the dual-track education system I proposed, the education department would not have achieved such remarkable achievements.

If I must say who is the biggest contributor to the development of Spanish education so far, I think it should be your Majesty. The education department still needs your guidance, and I will continue to contribute my remaining energy under your instructions to make further contributions to Spain's education cause."